1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to collapsible structures, and in particular, to modifications and additions to currently-known collapsible structures to enhance the utility and variety of use for these collapsible structures.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are presently many collapsible structures that are being provided for use by children and adults. Examples of these collapsible structures are illustrated in the following patents: U.S. Pat. No. 5,816,954 (Zheng), U.S. Pat. No. 6,006,772 (Zheng), U.S. Pat. No. 5,778,915 (Zheng), U.S. Pat. No. 5,467,794 (Zheng), U.S. Pat. No. 5,975,101 (Zheng), U.S. Pat. No. 5,722,446 (Zheng), U.S. Pat. No. 4,858,634 (McLeese), U.S. Pat. No. 4,825,592 (Norman), U.S. Pat. No. 5,964,533 (Ziglar), U.S. Pat. No. 5,971,188 (Kellogg et al.), and U.S. Pat. No. 5,038,812 (Norman), among others. These collapsible structures are supported by one or more frame members that can be twisted and folded to reduce the overall size of the structure. These collapsible structures can be used in a wide variety of applications, such as containers, tents, play structures, executive toys, shelters, sports structures, and others. As a result, collapsible structures have become very popular.
Even though these collapsible structures exhibit surprising versatility in their utility and wide-ranging applications, the consumer is always demanding greater enhancements, better and more features, added convenience, and other related factors. Thus, there remains a need to provide collapsible structures that have increased variety of play, entertainment value, and utility.
The present invention provides collapsible structures that provide additional panels and other features to known collapsible structures in order to improve the variety of plan, entertainment value, and utility of these collapsible structures. These collapsible structures can be easily and quickly folded and collapsed into a compact configuration.
In order to accomplish the objects of the present invention, the collapsible structures according to the present invention include one or more add-on panels that are coupled to the underlying collapsible structure to improve the variety of play, entertainment value, and utility of these collapsible structures.